Fending Off a Cyberattack

For this new year, there are plenty of concerns fleet managers have about the future of trucking maintenance. However, an emerging problem has been the danger of cyberattacks. Once a method of stealing user and financial information, hacking into a company and organization has evolved into a tool used by criminals to hold entities hostage via the capturing of sensitive information detrimental to a company’s success and well-being.

Featured in our Transport Topics podcast, RoadSigns, we spoke with Mark Zachos, president of vehicle solutions firm DG Technologies, about what that threat looks like. Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:

‘Cyberbullets’

Zachos explained that, for most companies, protection is concentrated on the server side — mainly administrative functions. However, the maintenance area has become a bountiful playground for cyberattacks. On the importance of cybersecurity, Zachos says delicate information is worth its weight in gold for the bad guys.

“If you’re running a commercial vehicle and that company that owns the vehicle, the data is theirs. However, that information is still valuable to the threats that are out there, the threats that are coming either from criminals, from people just trying to have fun, or phone-hacking into your equipment.

“Then there’s also the overseas threats that are coming from Russia and other countries. It’s an attack on our country. It’s an attack on a logistical system or attack on our infrastructure, just like they’re shooting bullets over in Ukraine. There’s certainly a threat of these cyberbullets coming from the bad guys and hitting us and knocking down our equipment, knocking down our logistics, making it hard for the country to function. Maybe not necessarily for ransomware. They just state that they want to hurt the United States.”

Chaos for Monetary Gain

As the threats from cybercriminals grow more complex, Zachos contended that the intentions usually still remain simple: money.

“It actually brings about financial rewards for those criminals. So, what they’re trying to do is to give you a hard time. ‘Unless you send me Bitcoin, I’m going to keep doing this.’ The typical attack on a fleet goes after their data in their server. It has information about the vehicle and individuals. [They collect personal and business information.]

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p class=”TX” style=”margin: 0px 0px 10px;font-size: 1rem;line-height: 1.625;color: #000000;font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, Cambria, ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif”>“They take that and lock it up encrypted, and then they ransom it back to you. Now, sometimes you get it back, sometimes you don’t. But I never recommend paying ransom. Sometimes you feel compelled to. Still, the bad guys have your data and what they then do is go out to what is called the darknet and they sell it there. They get a credit card number or Social Security number for $1. They’re making money and then the next guy comes along, and says, ‘Oh, I’ll buy that off the darknet and I can create another attack.’ So very often, there’s repeated attacks on companies.”

Fending Off a Cyberattack | Transport Topics (ttnews.com)